August 12, 2013

Whydunit or Whodunit? By Michael A. Black

When considering the differences
between a “whydunit” and a “whodunit,” it struck me that the two are inseparably
intertwined. It would be difficult to figure out whodunit, without knowing why
they “dunit,” although you might be able to make a case for knowing why, but
not exactly whodunit in certain situations. But, then again, part of this would
certainly involve their kissing cousin, “howdunit.” After rereading that
paragraph I feel compelled to include a picture of the sign in the Haunted
Forest from The Wizard of Oz:

I’d turn back if I were you.

Consider that your warning. You’re not in Kansas anymore.

Maybe we can make this conundrum
more comprehensible by breaking it down into its various parts. Traditionally,
mysteries have always been referred to as “whodunits.” I used that title for
the first short story in my new collection, Pope’s
Last Caseand Other Stories.
Highbrow critics labeled mysteries thusly, making “whodunit” a rather
pejorative term. Snobbish critic Edmond Wilson once wrote an essay called “Who
Cares Who Killed Roger Acroyd?” Among Wilson’s pompous assertions was that the
mystery genre (another pejorative in his opinion) was all about creating a cute
little puzzle and tying it up with a bow. In other words, it was not the sort
of thing that a man of his self-inflated sophisticated tastes would be caught dead
reading.

Oh, really?

How many people these days remember
who Wilson was, or the ridiculous essays he wrote? To say the guy missed the
mark is like saying he couldn’t kick a cow paddy through an open barn door.
Besides showing his ignorance and pomposity, he missed out on an important point.
Mysteries, or whodunits, are still widely popular because they’re entertaining
and fun to read. That’s why the genre has been around for so long and continues
to flourish. I’m flying a bit far afield here, but I recently took a survey
about reading habits and one of the questions was, Name the best book you had to read in school. I sat there considering
this question, and reviewed as many of them as I could recall reading in my
academic life. I could certainly recall a lot more bad ones than ones that I
liked. This speaks to one of the defects in our educational system. Instead of
being taught that reading is fun and enjoyable, teachers often force-feed
students a steady diet of uninteresting, incomprehensible books. (Ever met
anybody who enjoyed reading Moby Dick
or The Scarlet Letter in high school?
They both sent me running for the Cliff’s
Notes.) This makes students dread reading and see it was drudgery rather
than a great entertainment. They do this because they were taught by their
college professors that those were the books that represented “good literature.”
Their professors were taught this by the previous generation of professors who
were in turn taught the same thing by their professors, and so on.

Think that I’m an unsophisticated
knucklehead? Well, maybe I am, but at least I admit I used the Cliff’s Notes and a Classics Illustrated comic book to write my high school essay on Moby Dick. Go on, take the test. I dare
you. Name the “best book” you were forced to read in school. Now name the best
book you read on your own during that same time period. I’d be willing to bet
you have a lot more to choose from in that second category.

But anyway, let me get off my
soapbox and back to our original topic: Whydunit vs. Whodunit. If you’re
reading a mystery, figuring out whodunit is pretty closely connected to
whydunit. I would venture to say that if you know who, you have probably
figured out whydunit, and if you know whydunit, whoduit should be fairly
obvious. Enter the red herrings and the artful subterfuges. I can remember
watching an old mystery movie on television with my grandfather when I was a
kid. I was totally convinced that one character was the killer that I made that
prognostication that “He dunit.” Alas, when the climactic revelation came, I
was in total shock to find out I was wrong. The guy I thought was the killer “hadn’t
dunit” after all. My grandfather laughed and said, “You got off on some stray
tracks, didn’t you?”

I must admit, I did. But the guy
I thought “dunit,” was framed. It was a marvelous set up. The “hadn’t dunit”guy
even had a real solid “whydunit” motive. That’s what the real guy “whodunit”
was counting on. The “whodunit” had his own reasons for “whydunit,” which
weren’t revealed until the detective had everybody in the same room and
reviewed all the other possible “whydunit” reasons. The telling clue, which was
revealed in this last scene of the last act, was so obscurely planted that I,
and just about everyone else, had missed it the first time.

Whodunits like that have fallen
out of favor in recent years. I think it has to do with playing fair with the
reader. Otherwise, it’s like asking the magician why he pulled a rabbit out of
his hat instead of a rhinoceros. So, as a writer of mysteries, it’s imperative
to put a few layer of whydunit in your whodunit, and don’t forget to add a
little howdunit, either.

Okay, admit it: Don’t you wish
you’d taken the advice on that sign from the Haunted Forest back at the end of
the first paragraph?

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Ha! I'm glad I walked through the haunted forrest. I really, really needed Cliff Notes for Paradise Lost by Milton, and hated Catcher in the Rye by good old JDS. I agree about the whodunnits and the whydunnits and throwing in some howdunnits. I do think many writers could be a bit more creative on the whydunnits, though. I like when the whydunnits include more than just love, revenge, envy, greed, or the like. Spy novels and Adventure novels sometimes do, and they have nifty howdunnits, too. Being paid to find a rare treasure, hmm, like in Clive Clussler's books. That's fun.

There's a new TV drama called MOTIVE -- at least I think it's new.
The set up in each episode is that you know the Victim and the Killer immediately, but you don't know the motive or how they're connected. The story unfolds as the cops figure out the motive/connection. Interesting. Not sure what EO would say!

Camille, I've watched a few episodes of Motive as well. It's definitely an interesting concept to separate the whodunit from the whydunit. The show writers do a good job of masking the real motive until the last possible minute.

Gucci, Gucci, Gucci... I guess we need to reimplement the spam controls. Ah well, I appreciate the real comments. I started watching that Motive show the other night but stopped after they froze the screen and told me who the killer was. Of course, I never enjoyed watching Columbo, either.

Oh no! Talk about the haunted forest... this is the haunted blogsite! I will banish Gucci from the comments.
I must admit that, in 90% of my mystery reading, once I get about 50 pages into the book I flip to the back to see whodunit and why. Then I decide whether I want to read the rest! :-) All that said, I do like movies and TV shows to wind out in such a way that keep me guessing...